Steven Wilson Presents: Intrigue-Progressive Sounds In UK Alternative Music 1979-89 (Signed)＜限定盤＞

Curated by Porcupine Tree guitarist Steven Wilson, the four-disc compilation Intrigue: Progressive Sounds in UK Alternative Music 1979-89 tackles the entirety of the 1980s with the mission of exposing the strangest, most inventive, and most abstract sounds coming out of the United Kingdom in a decade where music could often feel sterile or homogenized. Thats hardly the case with the 58 tracks Wilson presents here, all of which are miles away from the blandness of the charts and commercial trends of the 80s and focused more on post-punk, new wave, art rock, goth rock, synth pop, and all imaginable intersections thereof. Intrigue offers a fantastic primer for independent music happening at a time when bands like U2 or Tears for Fears were what most people considered edgy. The comp kicks off with an especially moody Wire track, and quickly follows with submissions from Public Image Limited, Magazine, Gang of Four, This Heat, and the like. Wilson includes updated mixes of his own making with tracks like XTCs "Complicated Game" and Robert Fripp and the League of Gentlemens "Cognitive Dissonance." Intrigue makes space for many different shades of sound that grew out of post-punk, ranging from the haunted ska of the Specials "Ghost Town" to Joy Divisions slow-moving funeral march "The Eternal" to Kate Bushs theatrical Hounds of Love fever dream "Waking the Witch." Theres nothing but highlights throughout the several hours of deep cuts and more familiar tracks gathered on Intrigue, and the entire collection flows well regardless of the various wild directions it goes in. If Wilsons aim was to showcase the excitement and unconventional thinking that existed in the shadows of banal mainstream sounds throughout the 80s, Intrigue accomplishes that goal and then some. ~ Fred Thomas